Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2011-05-04.) Up until now I haven’t talked much about DB2, except perhaps to note it’s a little different. But what is a DB2 Batch job anyway? It’s important to note a DB2 job ISN’T necessarily exclusively DB2 – although some are. It’s just a job that has some DB2 in it. The reasonContinue reading “Batch Architecture, Part Three”

(Originally posted 2011-04-26.) This is literally a sketchy outline for a new presentation I want to build. The working title is indeed "I Know What You Did Last Summer". There’s clearly not much structure to this. But the basic outline idea is there: What can an installation glean without too much effort? Let the graphologyContinue reading “I Know What You Did Last Summer”

(Originally posted 2011–04–25.) I concluded Batch Architecture – Part One with a brief mention of inter-relationships and data. I’d like to expand on that on this part. Often the inter-relationships between applications are data driven – which is why I’m linking the two in this post (and in my thinking). But let’s think about theContinue reading “Batch Architecture, Part Two”

(Originally posted 2011–04–21.) Thanks to Scott Drummond for reminding me of last Autumn’s DFSORT Function PTFs – UK90025 and UK90026. They’re mentioned in the preview for z/OS Release 13 so now is not such a bad time to be talking about them. So let me pick out a few highlights: Translation Between ASCII And EBCDIC,Continue reading “DFSORT – Now With Extra Magical Ingredients”

(Originally posted 2011–04–20.) William Gibson’s “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed” applies very well to HTML5. It’s even more true of CSS3. Despite that (or maybe because of it) it’s a good time to dive into HTML5 – before everyone else does. 🙂 So, a few months ago IContinue reading “HTML5 Up and Running – A Review Of Sorts”

(Originally posted 2011–04–19.) I wouldn’t want you to decide not to come to Vienna, just because I’ve made my slides available on Slideshare: I’d hope you’d come to Vienna anyway. It’s a great place and it’s going to be a great conference. Lots of people can’t make Vienna and I don’t suppose having the slidesContinue reading “My Slides Are Ready For Vienna”

(Originally posted 2011-04-15.) Every once in a while I come across a particularly good idea: Where someone has done something particularly clever to solve a problem. Here’s one very recent example: On the iPhone (and iPod touches) you can only display icons. They can be augmented with a numeric counter, but that’s all. (The ideaContinue reading “I’m A Sucker For Ingenuity”

(Originally posted 2011–04–12.) First a word of thanks to Ferdy for his insightful comment on Batch Architecture, Part Zero. And also to my IBM colleague Torsten Michelmann for his offline note on the subject. As I indicated in Part Zero I hoped to talk about jobs in a subsequent post. And this is that post.Continue reading “Batch Architecture, Part One”

(Originally posted 2011–04–11.) I’m working on my presentations for System z Technical University – Vienna, May 2–6 and I’m reviewing the agenda. As well as my four presentations there are lots of other goodies. These range from the Management level down to the purely technical. (I guess mine are towards the latter end of theContinue reading “IBM System z Technical University – Vienna, May 2-6”

(Originally posted 2011-04-04.) Inspired by two of Bob Leah’s posts on QR Codes – here and here I started experimenting with creating and consuming QR codes. But what is a QR  code? In short it’s a two-dimensional barcode that can contain e.g plain text or a URL. In the latter case a QR code readerContinue reading “Experimenting With QR Codes”